Honest Burgers - review

In fact Honest Burgers' appeal is wide, as the 20-deep queue on a Sunday lunchtime testifies. Turnover is fast, though: with an aggressively succinct menu and more than half of its seating outside in the hipster-thronged thoroughfare of Brixton Village market, it isn't really a place to linger. But the place's raison d'être makes it worth the wait.

Burgers have long been viewed in this country as a less-than-serious culinary proposition. It's an understandable suspicion when considered in the garish strip lighting of south London's greasier establishments, but a tragic oversight for anyone who has marvelled at the seriousness of the burgers in America's more upmarket grills (hell, in plenty of the downmarket ones too).

Honest Burgers focuses laser-like on the quality of its headline product. They are made from 35-day dry-aged, British rare-breed chuck steak, sourced from the Ginger Pig, and it shows: these are slabs of seriously good meat, served in a glazed bun (gluten-free also available).

You can have them topped with cheddar, or stilton or - the most expensive, at £8 - the "Honest", topped with smoked bacon, cheddar and red onion relish.

For my money the stilton was especially luscious, although at least two people around our table declared other variants the best burgers they'd ever had.

Indeed, aside from these four burgers, there are just two other items on the menu - a very decent chicken sandwich and a mixed vegetable fritter (I'm afraid I couldn't take the latter seriously enough to sample it). All are served with possibly the best chips in south London, triple-cooked and served with lashings of rosemary salt.

And around you, Brixton Village swaggers and scoffs its way towards fame, probably the hottest new concentration of restaurants in London right now.

Honest Burgers
Unit 12, First Avenue, Brixton Village,, SW9